The Falconer's Debt
by Starwind77
Summary: Ezio finds Lorenzo severely wounded in the Palazzo Medici and recalls his father's oath.


**Title:** The Falconer's Debt  
**Rating:** PG-13 for blood and violence  
**Pairing:** Ezio/Lorenzo, implied Giovanni/Lorenzo  
**Word Count:** 2,070  
**Description:** Ezio finds Lorenzo severely wounded in the Palazzo Medici and recalls his father's oath.  
**Author's Note:** I have a bizarre thing for Lorenzo hurt-comfort after playing through the Pazzi conspiracy sequence, so I decided to rewrite the Palazzo Medici scene to fulfill my needs. No real slash...just a lot of pain and angsting, although you can read what you like into the bandaging part. The Medici emblem is actually not quite right - it was the emblem of Piero de' Medici (Lorenzo's son), but I thought the image of the falcon was more romantic than a bunch of balls.

With his last reserves of strength, Lorenzo twisted his blade into the soldier's gut, then staggered back and collapsed against the marble pillar. His eyelids fluttered as he clamped a hand to the blood pouring down his side. He would not survive another attack of this magnitude.

The patriarch of the Medici family pulled himself up painfully in the narrow alcove, eyes scouring his treasure room for anything that might stem the tide of red that stained his snowy robes. Gold coffers, jewels, thousands of florins locked tight in ornate chests, these were the fruits of his lineage...but no medicine, no doctors. Only the sounds of the Pazzi traditori violating the sanctity of his home.

...The irony was not lost upon him.

Lorenzo let his head fall back against the cool marble and tried to make sense of all that had happened. The attack came in the middle of night, swarms of condottieri descending on his palazzo without warning. They'd silenced the guards, slaughtered the servants, and laid siege to his chambers before he could even draw his sword. If not for the secret passages that snaked behind these walls, their attack might very well have succeeded. He had sworn Poliziano to protect his wife and children before he pushed them through the backdoor, ignoring the man's pleas to flee with them. Once was enough. A flash of anger pierced Lorenzo's slate gray eyes. He would not let his enemies chase him from his own villa.

A noise from above caused him to jolt in alarm, and immediately, he hissed in agony. The wound in his side was deeper than he'd thought - he had pivoted too late to deflect the falchion, surrounded as he was by four other merceneries aiming for his throat. Retreating to the treasure room was a tactical mistake, he knew, but it was his only recourse given the circumstances. And still, the Pazzi dogs had breached the hidden entrance, cornering him in what they no doubt believed would be an easy kill. Perhaps not as easy as they expected. Lorenzo's lips twisted into a grim smile, as he eyed the bodies littered around him. But the victory had cost him dearly. A slash to his shoulder, another parting the cloak at his arm, and faintly, he could feel something hot and sticky trickling down his neck.

...He was running out of time.

Pulse racing, Lorenzo pried a blade from one of the corpses and slowly, painfully, pushed himself to his feet. If he was to die, then he would die as a Medici should - standing firm, proud and unyielding.

A hooded figure in white leaped down with surprising grace, footsteps all but silent on the polished floor.

"Get back!" Lorenzo cried, cursing the desperation that crept into his voice. His blood-stained fingers tightened around the hilt of the sword.

There was the familiar _shink_ of metal being unsheathed...followed by a pause. And then, a voice he recognized all too quickly.

"Lower your sword, it's me."

"Ezio?" Relief flooded Lorenzo as he let the blade slip bonelessly from his hand. "Grazie a Dio!" He took two steps forward, stumbled, and nearly fell against the young assassin. Through vision blurred with pain, Lorenzo could make out the entire side of his robe, dyed crimson with his lifeblood. "Where is - "

"I've spoken to Poliziano, he's returning with reinforcements as we speak." Ezio caught the older man gently in his arms and walked them both back until they were leaning against the marble column.

"What about Clarice...my children?" Lorenzo rasped, eyes burning with feverish intensity. Despite his weakened state, the head of the Medici clutched Ezio's arm like a vise, refusing to lie down.

"On the way to Pistoia as we speak," Ezio soothed. He pressed a palm to the other man's chest, urging him to the ground. "Hold still, Signore. You're losing a lot of blood."

Assured of his family's safety, Lorenzo finally let his knees buckle beneath him. Heavy samite robes folded like curtains about his chest, suffocating in their weight. He allowed the younger man to pull his cloak off, its rich circlet of gems clattering to the floor, and unbutton his fur-lined collar, stiff fabric parting to reveal the ashen curve of his throat, pearled with sweat. "First, they invade my church." Lorenzo groaned when Ezio's fingers found his belt, steeped so thick in blood it felt like a shackle around his waist. "Now, my home. Agh!" His face twisted in pain, as strong hands pressed a compress to his side. "The Pazzi shall pay for this," he roared, a wounded lion in a cage, "I swear I'll hunt them down, until nothing is left of them on this Earth!" But the roar quickly dissipated into a cough, a wet choked sound, which flecked his lips with the taste of salt and metal.

"Don't try to talk," Ezio said, lifting the other man's head. "It will only make the bleeding worse." As Lorenzo subsided into silence, labored breaths echoing against the gilded walls, he studied the wounds that marked the pale, lean body. The gash on the arm was light, quickly bandaged by the assassin's nimble fingers. The one on his shoulder was deeper, only a feint away from nicking his throat, and Ezio carefully cut away the sleeve with his knife (wincing as he ripped through embroidered silk) before cleaning and wrapping it as best he could. He then turned his attention to the third and most grievous wound.

The fine cloth at Lorenzo's side was split completely asunder, no pauldron to deflect the blow that slashed down his waist and pelvis. Ragged edges prevented the compress from settling tightly, and already, blood had soaked through, oozing down the other's thigh. He would have to remove all of Lorenzo's garments in order to bind it properly. With rapid precision, Ezio undid gold buttons and pushed aside brocaded fabric, but upon reaching the older man's hip, he hesitated, respect and embarrassment staying his hand. Despite their friendship, this was still Lorenzo de' Medici, the Duke of Florence - whom his father had once called _il Magnifico_ - and he couldn't bring himself to violate the man's privacy.

"Signore, I..." Ezio swallowed, a dry click in the back of his throat. "I need to remove your breeches to bandage the wound."

A dry chuckle whispered past the elder Medici's lips. For a second, his eyes flickered open. "I think...we're beyond social graces now," Lorenzo said hoarsely.

Nodding in silence, Ezio stripped off the last remnants of bloodied clothing, trying to remain clinical as he stroked his thumb over the gash. Jagged and deep, an angry red smile carved in pallid flesh, the Duke was lucky that the blow had not been fatal. It splintered down at an angle, widening in a swath as it cleaved close to the hipbone, before terminating abruptly just above the thigh - no doubt when Lorenzo had torn himself away, moments too late. Grimly, Ezio eyed his pouches. He had no needle or thread, and the thin roll of bandages would not be enough. He would have to improvise.

With a twinge of regret, Ezio shrugged off his own assassin's cape and ripped it in half, winding one end around Lorenzo's leg as he tied the other across his stomach in a makeshift tourniquet. The older man gasped with each twist of the knot, fingers curling, but otherwise remained disturbingly silent throughout the ordeal, causing Ezio to furrow his brow in concern. He hadn't any salve for the wound, so if the pain was receding, then that meant Lorenzo was slowly slipping into unconsciousness.

"I've done what I can, but we need to get you to a doctor," he said urgently. "Is there a passageway out of here that leads to the back of the palazzo? Poliziano and his men are waiting at the gate." Ezio scanned the room for traces of an exit, but without running his hands over the panels themselves, he could not be certain.

"Again you save me, Ezio." Lorenzo ignored the question. The Duke's eyes were glazed when he next opened them, his palm lingering on Ezio's cheek. "Your father, he would be proud."

"Signore?"

"It seems the Auditore...have a habit...of saving Medici lives." Tension slowly drained from Lorenzo's body, as his head lolled to one side, voice fading to a whisper.

Alarmed, Ezio shook the older man. "Stay with me, Signore. Signore!" He quickly pressed two fingers to Lorenzo's neck, feeling for the pulse there, weak and fluttering. Like the uneven beat of moth wings trapped between panes of glass. With this much blood loss, he might never...

Muttering a silent apology, Ezio slapped the Duke hard across the face.

"Nngh." The assassin was gratified to hear Lorenzo groan in response, pulse strengthening slightly beneath his fingertips. But the man's next words made him freeze. "Giovanni, you mustn't call me that," the elder Medici murmured, turning into the crook of his arm, "...non e nelle mie stanze1..." Syllables slurred into nonsense once more, but the hand that encircled Ezio's wrist remained firm, almost too tight, as if it could wrest away Death's grip by sheer force of will.

At first, the assassin was startled to hear his father's name fall from the Duke's lips, but he quickly realized that Lorenzo must be delirious from blood loss, mistaking his voice for Giovanni's. Relaxing, he allowed the man his phantoms, seeing as it fueled his will to live, though the memories brought a pang to Ezio's own heart. He shifted so Lorenzo could lie more comfortably in his lap.

Stripped of his finery, the Duke of Florence looked oddly pale, vulnerable, his lustrous chestnut hair matted with sweat and dried blood. His aristocratic cheekbones, the envy of every courtier in Italy, were now an ashen white. Only the fingers that enclosed Ezio's arm exuded any vigor, and Ezio found himself studying them as if he could read the man's past in their grasp. They were strong fingers, he noted, but slender - more accustomed to a quill than a blade. Blood caked beneath finely shaped nails, staining the pads a grimy maroon. The bones of his knuckles jutted up sharp as daggers. For all of Lorenzo's wealth, only a single band of silver adorned his hand, its surface etched with the icon of a falcon in mid-flight, talons wrapped around a diamond ring.

_Semper_. The emblem of the Medici.

A sound of boots within the wall's paneling cut through Ezio's thoughts. Instantly, the assassin rose to his feet, reaching for the sword at his side. The secret passageway! His enemies must be on their way. As Ezio moved toward the noise, muscles tensing for battle, he was stopped by Lorenzo's hand around his wrist, clenching reflexively, and the silent whisper of _Giovanni, please_ that papered thin lips. Again, Ezio's gaze fell to the the ring, the Medici ring, which dug like a brand into his skin. The same ring his father once kissed in an oath of fealty.

"Dormire sonni tranquilli, Lorenzo.2 I am here to protect you," he swore on impulse, and immediately felt a stab of guilt for his intrusion. After all, he hardly knew the man, certainly not as well as his father did after decades of service, and this was clearly a private memory. Yet as Ezio pressed his lips to the falcon insignia, his breath fogging the shiny metal, the Duke's grip slowly ebbed, loosened, lines of strain smoothing out on his face...and for a moment, Ezio knew what it was that made Giovanni lay his life down for a Medici. Flicking the catch of his hidden blade, he crouched beside Lorenzo like a bird of prey by its master, ready to strike.

He needn't have worried, however, for it was Poliziano who stepped through the passage door, a contingent of allies following behind him. When the scholar saw his Lord crumpled against a pillar, he immediately called for a black-robed man, whom Ezio recognized as the Medici's personal physician. There were shouts, orders, a stretcher readied on the ground, but as the assassin prepared to disappear into the shadows, his blade unneeded, Lorenzo pulled him close and mouthed a single word into his ear.

"Grazie."

One month later, when Ezio again kissed the Medici ring, he wondered who the Duke was really thanking - him, or his father.


End file.
